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My “People’s Limbo 5”, The atonement, a tale freely adapted from S.T. Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

ancient-mariner-22 RMB City graveyard (RMBCity 1 128, 65, 46 Mature), sunset.


While musing on my new duty as knight-errant of RMB City I got stopped by a red-haired avatar asking me to listen to her tale. glittering-eye2

Though eagering to spend some time by myself I couldn’t resist the hypnotizing power of her ‘glittering eye’, I sat on a gravestone and listened to her story:

There was a ship –she told- me and my crew were sailing SL Ocean to set foot on this island but while lashing the waves and unfurling the sails a group of white cranes surrounded our ship and started eating our food.

cranes7_001 Though after their arrival the sea fog cleared out and the ice around our ship cracked I   couldn’t  stand these animals stealing our stocks and shot one of them with my crossbow.

‘Alas, alas! –cried all my crew- you’ve killed the bird that made the breeze to blow’.

Dreadful and anguishing nights I spent thereafter, with all my men inexorably dropping dead, slimy creatures crawling around the ship and no sign of wind to inflate the sails.

me-dead2_0011And then one day a ghostly shipped drew close with only two crewmen in it: red-lipped ‘Life-in-Death’ and Lady-Death: they killed everyone but me: I was the prize of ‘Life-in-Death’ and had to live to atone for my sins. Nights and days passed by, no sign of wind, nor food nor rain arrived

I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat ;

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

lady-death4

Seven days and seven nights I spent enduring their ghostly sights, when finally something appeared: a slimy and immense sea creature swam by and instead of being horrified I felt touched by its unique beauty and mysterious colour:

slimy-creature6_0011

O happy living things ! no tongue
Their beauty might declare :
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware.


On a brightening morning I’ve finally set ashore on this place and here I stay, fated to love all creatures, maintain the Qi-balance of this island and tell my tale to any passer-by.”

Time has passed and here I am to remember red-haired avatar’s tale: citizens of this new world go and spread her word!rhyme-of-the-amariner_0011
In this place of death and mystery, the limbo of my life, I see some signs of rebirth, grab the hoe next to the tombs and start working on my future again.

Blog — Gianna Yebut, July 16, 2009 @ 11:25 pm

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